


Affection Returned

by Project0506



Series: Soft Wars [51]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Expressing emotions via baked goods, F/M, Family, Gen, Some Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-20
Updated: 2020-04-20
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:13:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23751370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Project0506/pseuds/Project0506
Summary: Sabé is mixing up dough for an alarming number of flowering rolls.  Padmé is incredibly curious.  Anakin wonders if leaping from a window is a viable exit strategy.A Moment in the Rex Adopts a Jedi universe.  In which adoption just keeps going.
Relationships: Padmé Amidala/Anakin Skywalker
Series: Soft Wars [51]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1683775
Comments: 45
Kudos: 707





	Affection Returned

**Author's Note:**

> 1) Rex is hurting me. Like a lot. I know I promised his fic would be next but I needed a karking break for my poor heart.
> 
> 2) According to Tumblr, yesterday was the anniversary of bread-related graffiti found in a Roman gladiatorial arena. I stan bread. Almost as much as I stan Rex.
> 
> 3) A LOT of y'all are getting real experimental with breads. I hope whoever's affection you're returning or expressing for hella appreciates it.
> 
> 4) I made up Nubian culture. Because I can.

“Who are we seducing?” Padmé asks breezily as she sweeps into the room, trailing heavy brocade and gilt in her wake. “Is it Captain Rex’s twins? I approve.”

Sabé snarls. The next punch to her dough is thrown from the waist, not the shoulder. Impressive, and not just because she did it without cracking her knuckles on the counter top from the angle. The flowering rolls from that dough are going to be spectacularly soft. Padmé might be willing to let herself be seduced by them, just to get one.

Anakin hugs the furthest wall in the kitchen, eyes wide with alarm. He’s a man trapped: Sabé stands between him and the door. He’s eyeing the window and the three hundred story drop it means with increasing consideration. Padmé should probably step in; he’s gotten so much better but occasionally he still has some issues with impulse control, particularly when he’s panicking.

“Ani, help me with the clasps?” Anakin nearly leaps for salvation.

Sabé slides Padme the quickest flash of a glance, heavy with judgmental amusement. Padme ignores her. Anakin has a great many attributes that more than make up for his tendency to be a bit of a disaster sometimes. Not _everyone_ has had handmaiden training.

By now Anakin has gotten familiar with Nubian Senate fashion, enough that even though this is a piece he hasn’t seen before he’s able to find the tiny hidden clasps with ease and in a remarkably short time. See Sabé? A _great_ many attributes.

“So? There’s quite a bit of affection going on in here,” Padme notes as she wriggles out of the heavy top layers and leaves them to stand on their own, supported by the sheer volume of underwire. The thin undershift is unreasonably comfortable. “Are we expressing or returning?” Oh! There’s a _filling_! She dodges Sabé’s swat to steal a taste. Muja. Mandalorian?

That will make quite a lot of filled flowering rolls though, even for indicating returned affection. Even for indicating returned affection to twins.

“Are you pregnant?”

“I took vows never to harm you,” Sabé retorts stonily. “But occasionally you test me.” Padme nods, accepting that for the answer it is. She freezes.

“Am _I_ pregnant?” she demands. Her last checkup had been fine, she knows. How long ago had it been? Anakin makes a noise as though punched in the sternum. She pats his arm absently.

The look _that_ get is so filled with judgment the tops of her cheeks flush. “If you get pregnant _now_ , while we still have this much work, you will most certainly not get flowering rolls.”

Perfectly reasonable. If Padme has to leave the senate now she will most certainly not deserve any sort of roll, flowering or otherwise. She’d probably earn a stone bun, even.

Sabé returns to menacing thick dough into soft waves. Anakin inches for the door. He thinks if he moves slowly enough she won’t notice. It’s cute, in a very child-like way. Padmé snags his arm and gleefully whisks him back to the table, away from the door.

He watches both it and her with the most deeply mournful, betrayed look.

“Ani tell me why we’re filling the kitchen with a scandalous volume of flowering rolls,” Padmé demands, harrying him into a chair and perching in his lap.

“I don’t know?” Anakin laments. “All I _said_ was-”

“Start at the beginning Ani,” Padmé interrupts. He’ll relay only the last few sentences of conversation otherwise, and that’s generally not enough to pull context from.

Anakin frowns, one of concentration though not frustration. “We found some info on Ahsoka’s heritage,” he says. “There’s a Coming of Age hunt that happens about when she’s this age, maybe a little older. She wants to take part, but a master in the art has to present you as part of the ceremony. A Hunt Parent, it’s called. Same rough gender, so Rex can’t do it. Master Ti offered, but Ahsoka wasn’t really comfortable being presented by someone she didn’t really know. And we all thought we’d prefer to keep it in the family anyway.”

Sabé punches the dough so hard the knife block across the counter rattles.

Oh.

“Oh _Ani_ ,” Padmé murmurs and pulls him into a deep kiss. He’s confused, she can tell, but happy enough to be kissing her he doesn’t care. “You’re wonderful,” she says. He grins puppyish, still confused. Padmé slides out of his lap. “Go see if C3PO needs a tune up for me, would you? I have this.”

Off he bounds, just so thrilled to be loved and be helpful. Padmé’s heart is just so full for him.

Padmé washes up in the sink, drifts deliberately closer. “Will this be enough,” she asks, “if we’re returning affection to all of Torrent?”

“Two batches in the fridge,” Padmé’s sister in all-but-blood says. “One more proofing in the oven. I ran out of flour.”

“I’ll put in an order,” Padmé agrees and snags an apron.


End file.
